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AI: Well, today is Saturday, July 4th, 1998, and we're speaking with Mr. Kenge Kobayashi. My name is Alice Ito. We're here at the Tule Lake Pilgrimage at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Oregon. And Mr. Kobayashi, I wanted to ask you a little bit, to go way back actually, and ask about your parents, where they came from and about what time they, what year they came to the U.S. if you happen to know.

KK: Well, they came from Japan in 1910. They just got married and they were a young couple, and they farmed in the Imperial Valley raising melons and tomatoes for thirty years. They were hard working and... until the war started. Oh, we moved to Inglewood, California, right in 1940 and we started farming there. That's when the war broke out.

AI: And when were you born?

KK: I was born in Imperial Valley in 1926, July 25th.

AI: 1926. So you were still quite, rather young when the war broke out.

KK: Yes.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.